The specification relates to generating a personalized newsletter. In particular, the specification relates to generating questions and polls and using answers to the questions and polls to generate a membership profile and personalized newsletters.
As technology improves, the ability to disseminate information has increased drastically. This surplus of information allows people to have interests in more specialized areas. For example, a few years ago people were generally interested in photography. Now, people can specialize in digital cameras, digital single lens reflex (dSLR) cameras or even Nikon d300s dSLRs with Sigma lenses. Similarly, people are no longer simply Democrats, Republicans or Independents. They are Blue-Dog Democrats, Log-Cabin Republicans, Green-Party Members, Tea Partiers, Libertarians, Neocons, etc.
The specialized nature of information makes it more difficult to find the appropriate website for discussing a hobby with other people. Viewing a website on digital photography can be a waste of time if everyone wants to discuss using old Polaroid instant cameras or Canon point-and-shoots. Similarly, viewing a website for Republicans can result in a poor experience if the Neocons and the Tea Partiers get into a conversation with a Goldwater Republican.
This is particularly problematic from a website developer's perspective because if the website developer caters to a narrow subset of the population, then it results in a decreased stream of traffic. But if the website developer tries to appeal to everyone broadly, the website developer fails to make anyone happy. As a result, what is needed is a method for personalizing a website.
In addition to the problem of finding the proper website, people frequently visit these websites in order to have satisfying interactions with other people that are interested in the same hobby. It can be difficult to identify whether a user in the online community shares your interests because user profiles are typically devoid of specific information. User profiles are created to represent a user to the whole world. As a result, the user may not want to include her love of Nikon d300 dSLRs on a user profile because it is not a defining characteristic. In addition the user may not want to include his political affiliation for fear of alienating potential employers and friends. Furthermore, even if the user is willing to disclose highly specific information on his user profile, the profile will contain information that is unrelated to the purpose of a particular website. Thus, what is also needed is a way of personalizing a user profile according to the particular online community that the user is visiting.
Lastly, websites frequently send out newsletters to keep their members engaged in the website. When the newsletters are of a general nature, however, they provide little benefit because members are not interested in wading through the material to find information on their specialized interests. As a result, what is needed is a way to provide personalized newsletters.